Purchase Price: $57,500

2,810 sq ft.

This former church could offer fantastic new possibilities or be used as a beautiful and quaint church once again. The current owner had started tear out to commence renovations but was unable to continue. One of the improvements already completed is a 50-year steel shingled roof put on by Midwest Roofing. Beautiful stained glass windows are underneath all the boards! In addition to the parcel on which the building sits are the two parcels directly to the north for a total of more than 0.6 acres.

Contact Jim Wolfe at BHHS Stein & Summers Real Estate

Call: 573-205-9280

History

The charming brick church at 1102 N. 20th street has a long and fascinating history. On August 5, 1928 the St. Joseph Gazette ran a story with the history of the Oakland Park Methodist Episcopal Church under the headline: “Sunday School Started in 1889 Grows to Be Church”

“Oakland Park Methodist Church, which is now located at 20th and Highly streets, had its beginning in 1889 when several members of St. Paul Methodist Church decided to make an effort to start a Sunday school in a new field. In the group were J.C. Steinmetch and William Merrill. The efforts resulted in group meetings which were first held at the home of Mrs. Jordan on 19th street, just north of Holman street.

         “The group became strong enough late in that same year to build a small frame church at 22nd and James streets. Sunday school was held in the morning and preaching services were held occasionally in the afternoons. In 1890 this church was dedicated by Dr. J.J. Bentley and the Rev. Willis W. Wood was appointed as pastor. . .

         “In 1897 while the Rev. Lincoln Howard was pastor of the church, the new brick building at 20th and Highly streets was built, and it was dedicated that same year by Dr. S.H. Moore who was later elected a bishop. The Rev. Mr. Howard, an untiring worker, was pastor of the church six years and a number of his relatives are still active members of the church.

         “In 1913, while the Rev. W.D. Cater was pastor, the building underwent extensive remodeling, and the present entrance was built.

         “Oakland Park Church has one of the strongest and most prosperous Ladies’  Aid societies in the St. Joseph district, and its strength was never felt more keenly than at the time of the remodeling of the church. Mrs. C.H. Jackson was president of the organization at that time. When she resigned in 1917 after seven years of service, she was succeeded by Mrs. Tilden Story who still heads that organization.

         “About 1896, Eli Pavy was elected as the second Sunday school superintendent, and he continued to serve in that capacity until the end of 1927 when he resigned and B.C. Wyckoff was elected.. . .

         “The church is unique in that it has a woman for its pastor. Mrs. Myrtle Saylor Speer came to the church last October. She was graduated from Iowa Wesleyan College in 1912, afterwards teaching history and economics in high schools for three years. In 1916 she graduated from Chicago Training School, and until the time of her marriage in 1920 to C.A. Speer, was an evangelist and traveled in Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa.

         “Mrs. Speer was licensed to preach in Iowa in 1920 and was the first woman licensed to preach in the Methodist Episcopal church. With another woman, she was ordained to the ministry in Mary, 1926, in Ottowa, Kansas, the first to be ordained in the Kansas conference. Today she is the only woman pastor of the St. Joseph district of the Northwest Missouri conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church and was the first woman to be appointed to a pastorate in the conference.”

 Sadly about a decade later, by 1939, Oakland Park M.E. Church was no longer. The congregation abandoned this structure and it was taken over by a number of store-front type congregations until the 1980s. Initially it was known as the Church of Christ. By the mid-1960s it was the Highly Bible Church. As the 1970s dawned it became the St. Joseph Baptist Temple, and as that decade came to an end it was the Victory Tabernacle.

 St. Joseph has a large number of small, historic churches such as this that in their day served as the cornerstone for their neighborhoods. Many of them are disused and some are in poor shape. The revitalization of these churches may well be the key to the revitalization of many of these neighborhoods.

The Oakland Park M.E. church is ripe for adaptive reuse! There are so many things that can be done with church structures. If you need ideas, just google adaptive reuse of historic churches. Or you can start at https://hiddencityphila.org/2013/05/how-to-reuse-a-church-our-top-ten/